Inter-Police

Published in Paris by Presses Internationales, the Inter-Police series is rather underrated. It is certainly not considered one of the great crime fiction series in France, and is nowadays largely forgotten. Nevertheless, it published some 115 novels of international crime fiction between 1959 and 1965. Many of them would have actually deserved to be included in the much more prestigious “Série Noire” or “Un Mystère” series. Inter-Police featured a number of renowned international authors, starting brightly with Scerbanenco and McBain (as Evan Hunter, with Don’t Crowd Me, 1953), translated as Alerte aux baigneurs ! (no 3, 1959).

The first book in the series was Visa pour la morgue (Green Light for Death) by famous American Pulp Magazine writer Frank Kane (1912-1968)A scriptwriter for more than 20 Mike Hammer TV films, Kane also had numerous translations published in the Série Noire. Also published in the Inter-Police series were Richard S. Prather and Richard Deming, who, similarly, both had several novels translated in the Série Noire and two in the rival series Un Mystère. British author Brian Cleeve, the author of the Sean Ryan series features with the novel, Death of a Painted Lady. By comparison, none of the French authors in the Series have left any noticeable mark – likely the reason why the series is not more highly regarded.